Furniture known as "knock-down", or "K-D" furniture in the industry, has developed rapidly during the last few years in response to public demand for a less expensive, more easily assembled, disassembled, transported, stored and reassembled mode of furnishing their homes and/or offices. Many variations of K-D furniture have resulted and most of these variations remain in a state of continual improvement.
Much of such improvement to these furniture units has been in the development of durable and easily operable connecting elements used to support shelves, sliding drawers, doors etc. within the cabinets and enclosures. One significant development in K-D furniture is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,580,535 to Naske for a connecting fixture used to support shelves within a bookcase or other enclosure.
Naske's device includes a locking pin extending through an opening in a side wall of a cabinet and having a head and shank of the same diameter and a neck of reduced diameter. The head and neck protrude at a right angle from the inner surface of the side wall and receive a cup-shaped element which is mounted in the end or under surface of the cooperating shelf. In use the cup-shaped element slides onto the neck portion of the locking pin and the shelf is thereby supported (by a plurality of these pins and cup-shaped elements) within the enclosure. The same pins are also used to connect hinge plates, drawer slides, and the like.
The above and other types of locking pin systems have been widely utilized in K-D furniture because of their inherent versatility and ease in the adjusting and positioning of enclosure components. Parallel rows of apertures are drilled into or through side walls of the cabinet, and the locking pins are inserted into and held in the selected apertures. The shelves as described above, and other components with corresponding adapting elements are then connected to the locking pins.
However, many disadvantages still exist in the use of the above described pin system and these include: adaptability of existing conventional door hinges, drawer slides, and other hardware for use with such a K-D pin system; ease with which the enclosure may be erected; close tolerances required for fabricated end wall blanks; stability/durability; capacity for adjusting or aligning hinges to correct sagging doors; and aesthetic appearance.
As far as previous drawer slides are concerned considerable difficulty has been encountered in mounting the slides on the locking pins through the elongated holes provided at spaced points in the slide. The connecting pins on the inner side wall are not readily visible and it is difficult to properly position previously known slide for mounting. Also if the holes are not drilled to close tolerances, it has been found that the pins may not line up with the cooperating openings in the slide.
There has developed a lighted shelf with a cabinet lamp attached to the rear edge is cut away several inches. Bracket extensions extend the side of the shelf edge rearwardly to make connection with the rearmost locking pin. Such extensions now require left and right members fabricated and kept separately, which is expensive.
Existing hinge fixing plates for such a pin system are not compatible with conventionally available hinges, and therefore require special hinges which do not work well and hinder adjustment. Also the pins and apertures extend through the outer side walls and present a rather unsightly appearance on the exterior visible surfaces.